


Bound

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder ponders working with Sylar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound

_“Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.” _   
**-Smashing Pumpkins, ** **Bullet With Butterfly Wings**

_“He is the darkness that seeps into your fading light.” _  
**-Jann Arden, ****Could I Be Your Girl?**

“This is a nightmare. There is no other explanation for why you’re asking this of me,” Mohinder says to himself as much as to Angela Petrelli who is sitting on the sofa across from him.

The living room in the Petrelli house—mansion really—is classic and simple with smooth curves from the two sofas and armchairs melding into the straight edged lines of the coffee table. The off-white walls are comfortable but distant, punctuated by colours from photographs along the fireplace mantle and three stained glass hooded lamps placed throughout the room.

The details of the room are fuzzy in contrast to Angela sitting with her right leg crossed over her left and both hands clasped on her kneecap. She sits straight up and with her shoulders pushed back and unflinching eyes on him she exudes the type of enviable self-confidence that is all the more striking in the face of his rampant doubt.

“I understand your trepidation considering the history you share with Mr. Gray,” Angela says not taking her eyes off of him. Her voice betrays no empathetic understanding. “But if you were to give this some thought I believe you’ll see the benefit far outweighs the cons.”

Mohinder wrinkles his brow in disbelief and scoffs his confused exhalation. “History? Surely you don’t mean to sound so flippant about it?”

When Angela does not respond, verbally or with any break in her stoic resolve, he continues with the frustration he feels undeniable in his voice. “He’s a sociopath who stole the identity of one of his victims and used me to find more people he could kill. There’s no _history _besides him being a callous murderer—a power thief—doing whatever it takes to put himself ahead.”

Angela sighs and angles her head down while slightly raising her right eyebrow. “A bit melodramatic aren’t we?”

Mohinder is suddenly aware that his urgent words coupled with his leaning forward and resting his arms on his legs, tensely gripping the fabric of his pant and pushing into his skin, presents an unintended image of pleading desperation. He straightens up holding his back rigid. Keeping his left hand on his thigh he rests his other one on the side of the armrest.

“Besides the almost endless list of strangers, he’s killed Molly’s parents and my father. He has attempted to kill Claire and Peter—more than once—all to become unstoppable and to remove any perceived impediments along the way to his greatness,” says Mohinder working at keeping steady control in his inflection. “Please, tell me when I’m exaggerating.”

Angela murmurs through a tiny smile and says “Sometimes I forget you’re still children.”

Mohinder bristles at her condescension and is on the verge of retorting when she holds up her left palm to pacify him.

“Given what you know I do not blame you for such an emphatic response,” she says and clasps her hands over top her legs again. “But your eyes are still young and your knowledge is still that of a newborn. What I have seen is far beyond your understanding and I am in a position to share it with you, to work together.”

“At what cost?” Mohinder says under his breath but Angela’s upturn at the left side of her lips indicates she has heard him.

“There is always a price to pay,” she says. “Mr. Gray is not someone I particularly care for in terms of what he’s chosen to do in the past, but his arsenal of powers is…his mind…it would be suicide to not ensure he is on our side.”

Mohinder turns to rest his head on his angled right arm that he has propped up on the armrest. He gently massages his forehead, closing his eyes to think. If he is honest with himself he understands what Angela is asking of him but the notion of willingly allowing Sylar into their lives—into _his_ life—is too much for him to fathom without feeling sick to his stomach. He can already feel a headache creeping up.

“If you want to work with him,” Mohinder says and looks her straight in the eye, “that’s your decision, but I won’t do it. I won’t pretend that all is forgiven and forgotten. I can’t.”

So intense is Angela’s unblinking gaze that Mohinder feels as if she is piercing a hole through his flesh and bone to peer inside at what he will not say. He shifts uncomfortably.

“You’re a good scientist Dr. Suresh, but not great,” she says and Mohinder hisses a sharp intake of breath. “Do you know why I’ve survived this long, with what and whom I know?”

Mohinder waits for her to answer the rhetorical question.

“Emotions are a noose. When you allow them to cloud otherwise clear judgment you only serve to hurt yourself, drawing the rope tighter until your own demise is inevitable.”

“Mrs. Petrelli—,”

“You feel too much.”

“I _can’t _let go,” Mohinder says forcibly beneath a tight frown.

“You _won’t _let go,” she says harshly.

He feels small under her gaze, his self-confidence severely tested by her unwavering strength. Whatever she is feeling she holds close to her chest, only revealing what she chooses. Mohinder finds it admirable and off-putting. He knows his feelings get in the way of tough decisions but trying to remain professionally distant has thrown him into scalding water before. Either way he cannot seem to win. As he looks at Angela eyeing him carefully he knows that he does not want to lose himself completely, not when there could—_should_—be another way. Even if he does not know what that is yet.

Mohinder wills himself to hold her scrutinizing stare as he stands up. “Thank you for informing me of your plans Mrs. Petrelli—,”

“Angela.”

“…Angela. I will do what I can to help you but I refuse to work with Sylar. Even though you don’t agree I’m sure you can understand why I cannot be partnered up with him. There must be someone else he can work with.”

Angela does not reply besides pursing her lips. Mohinder awkwardly nods and makes his way to the front door. He places his hand on the knob and begins to turn it when he hears her footsteps behind him.

“I’m disappointed in you Dr. Suresh.”

Mohinder pauses and looks over his shoulder. “Imagine how I must feel,” he says and, opening the door, steps outside.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

“You have to be willing to step outside of what you know,” Bennet says.

Mohinder stands back from the microscope and sighs. “Like you?” he says and looks at Bennet behind him.

Bennet smiles grimly. “I know a lot more than you Suresh. I’ve had to make decisions you couldn’t even contemplate in your worst nightmares. I had to trust that I was right.”

Mohinder turns to face Bennet and leans back, pressing his back against the counter. He removes the protective plastic gloves he is wearing, left hand first then the right one, glancing up occasionally at Bennet in the process. He balls them up and tosses them into the recycling bin Molly had insisted he get as part of an environmental project at school. He rests his hands on either side of his body and grips the edge of the counter.

“So I should do this because it could be worse?”

Bennet removes his glasses and closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with his left hand, and takes a deep breath. “And because it’s a necessary evil,” he says as he puts the glasses back in place.

“Well that’s not much of a selling point,” Mohinder says to himself and folds his arms across his chest. What bothers him more than Bennet showing up unannounced in his lab to convince to work with Sylar (this one time, he keeps insisting) is that a part of him understands Bennet’s rationalization for why this makes sense.

“It’s not my job to sugarcoat any of this for you,” Bennet says edging forward a few steps.

“That’s never stopped you from withholding ‘need to know’ information out of protection or manipulation,” Mohinder says crossing his right foot in front of his left and presenting the desired impression of cool relaxation in the face of increasingly worried persistence.

“Something you didn’t appreciate as I recall,” Bennet says not easily thrown off by derisive reprimands.

Mohinder looks away to the far wall as he tries to clear his mind. He can feel Bennet’s eyes pressing down across his skin, telling him Bennet refuses to leave without an answer.

“Look…”

“I can’t…I’m not like you,” Mohinder is distracted by the thoughts turning over in his mind. He looks at Bennet. “I can’t compartmentalize my feelings about people or circumstances the same way that you do.”

“That’s a major flaw for a scientist and an operative,” Bennet smirks and Mohinder narrows his eyes in disapproval.

“Yes well it also makes me more of a human being than you,” Mohinder says.

“And look how well that’s turned out for you.”

Mohinder glares at Bennet but cannot argue the pointed observation. His decision making, as influenced by a rush of emotions as by logistic reasoning, does not have the best return rate. Even choices that have worked out relatively well have come with strings attached that pulled him in directions he had wanted to proceed more cautiously in.

Soothed by his unending research, disappointed by needless mistakes, driven by angered hunger from shattered expectations, working with Bennet had fit what Mohinder felt he had needed. However it had derailed just as fast beneath unclear motives. A strained bond still exists and in times like these that fact is both bothersome for the unknown factors it entails to a world filled with night terrors and a subtle relief that he is not alone in his trepidation to face it.

But this feels—_is_—different.

“If he had succeeded in killing Claire would you still be here trying to convince me he’s deserving of wiping the slate clean?” Mohinder says. He waits for Bennet to respond but no clever retort is thrown back at him. He pushes away from the counter and closes the gap with Bennet who, despite the sudden silence at the mention of Sylar’s attempts on Claire’s life, remains focused on him.

“You can’t be so cold as to not get it,” Mohinder says as his eyes water ever so slightly. “Sylar murdered my father, broke my mother’s heart. He made me believe in him, believe in…His cruel act brought me here and…even though this is where I’ve made incredible strides in my work—that my father began—that have made my mother so proud, I still left her behind. She lost a daughter, a husband, and a son—because long distance phone calls once a week are not the same thing.”

Mohinder looks away from Bennet’s steady gaze and sniffles back his running nose, then continues. “We’ve all made choices; my father, me, that have brought us here. But Sylar’s choices destroy people. His actions have turned my world upside down.”

Mohinder steps back and begins to head to the microscope and selection of samples when Bennet says, “So take it back.”

Mohinder looks at Bennet in confusion.

Stepping forward Bennet says, “Show him he hasn’t broken you, no matter what you feel. Make him see that you can’t be taken apart. Prove it to yourself.”

Mohinder opens his mouth to utter a knee-jerk response then snaps it shut as a clarifying thought, like a candle lit in a pitch black room, trips through his brain. “Why is it so important to you that I be on board?” he says and narrows his eyes inquisitively. “Why are you pushing this so hard? Why not just have him work with you if it’s so easy?”

Bennet ponders an answer contemplatively. “Sylar…responds to you,” Bennet says. “Angela already has him mostly on board but you’re…”

Mohinder is surprised to see Bennet drop his gaze to the floor and he hazards a guess at the distasteful sentiment Bennet is having trouble verbalizing.

“I’m the carrot at the end of the stick,” Mohinder says and cringes at his objectification as bait as well as his, understood, specific appeal to Sylar.

“It will mean more to him if you’re on board and we need him to be in this with us,” Bennet returns Mohinder’s gaze, his tone steady again with resolve.

“But I’m not on board,” Mohinder says shaking his head. “Not in the way you’re asking me to be. The only reason he would want me onside is to mess with me. He’s already taken a sick pleasure in dismantling my world.”

Bennet tenses his jaw and looks to the front door before settling on Mohinder. “If proving to yourself that your life is still yours, if fighting for a better future means momentarily siding with Sylar, are you really willing to turn your back?

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

“You don’t have to do it.”

Mohinder lowers the paper coffee cup and rests the edge along his bottom lip. Steam from the hot drink fills his nose and the bitter taste lingers on his tongue. He looks at Peter who watches him with concern. Mohinder puts the cup on the table and encircles his hands around it.

“Funny, you’re the only one who sees it as a choice,” Mohinder says in quiet observation.

Peter sighs and turns in his seat to glance at Maya who smiles at them from the front of the café, nodding thank you to the barista, and walks to their table. Mohinder focuses on the cup between his hands.

_Is Maya giving you a hard time about this? _

Mohinder flinches at Peter’s voice in his head and shoots him a sideways look.

_No. Her opinion is unwaveringly supportive of my decision._

Peter crinkles his eyes; his expression of confusion indicating an explanation is necessary. Before Mohinder can say anything Maya is pulling out the third chair at the table and sitting, putting her drink down and sliding her chair a few inches in Mohinder’s direction. He smiles cordially at her and looks back to Peter who he catches drifting his attention between the two of them.

When Maya takes a sip of her drink Peter thinks at Mohinder, _Then there’s no problem…or are you having second thoughts?_

Mohinder raises his drink to his lips and contemplates a drawn out gulp but instead sucks up a little of the too strong coffee. _I’m not changing my mind I’m just…_

His cut off thought gets lost in the chatter that fills the café. He sees Maya watching him expectantly, her forehead etched with lines across it, but it is Peter who calls her attention away.

“I hear you’ve been working on controlling your ability. How’s that coming along?”

Maya glances at Mohinder, meeting his eyes briefly, and she smiles for Peter. “Good. Mohinder’s been such a help,” she says and grasps Mohinder’s forearm giving him a quick squeeze. “I used to only see the bad in what I had and I only wanted to get rid of it, get it out of me.”

Holding her cup in both hands she takes a sip of her drink and says, “But seeing the work he’s done, realizing I am part of this higher calling…I can see the good now.”

“Something beautiful in all this mess,” Peter says and Maya nods at him.

_She wants to kill him, _Peter thinks at Mohinder.

_Annihilate_, Mohinder silently replies as he takes another sip of coffee and looks at the teenage couple entering the café. Their loud laughter tugs at him for what he is certain he will never experience (not so freely anyway) again.

He does not tell Peter that Maya’s hatred for Sylar comes with its own point of contention. In the early days of Mohinder getting to know her she had shared more openly the feelings she had developed for Gabriel. Her devastation over his manipulation of her, and the murder of her brother Alejandro, did not stop her form wondering, hoping, that he had meant some of what he had said. Her feelings after all had been real enough.

For her naturally friendly countenance Mohinder had wanted to tell her that her foray into trusting a stranger was not all for nothing. But knowing Sylar as he did, understanding Maya’s feelings of hurt over the betrayal as he did, Mohinder would not lie. The cruel truth of his silence gave way to her insistence in never allowing such a thing to happen again. It also meant that he could not share with her his own conflictions regarding the man. Sylar is too personal an issue to remain objective.

“Mohinder?” Maya says and she frowns slightly, no doubt at his silence.

“Sorry,” he says shaking his head in exaggeration. “Work on the brain.”

“My mom can be very persuasive,” Peter says and both Maya and Mohinder cast surprised wide eyes his way. “When she believes that something must be done, she can be…calculating.”

“Like a sledgehammer,” Mohinder says and twists a small smile that Peter returns. “Still I don’t think—,”

Mohinder catches himself already faltering from what once was a more stringently held position. “What I mean to say is I _won’t _be changing my opinion on the subject. No matter how uneasy your mother makes me feel.”

“Gabriel is a dangerous man,” Maya says breaking her way through Mohinder and Peter’s tense look. “He does terrible things. All he needs is a little to take everything away.”

Mohinder unexpectedly feels naked under Peter’s gaze. Without saying anything Mohinder always feels as if Peter is the one person who gets some sense of the intricate emotional underpinnings that play havoc in his mind regarding Sylar. At the moment Peter’s eyes feel impenetrable and Mohinder tries to reinstate his protective wall by looking down at the table.

“You are right not to work with him,” Maya says and when Mohinder looks up he feels both a sense of warmth and distance at the reassurance she projects at him with big brown eyes. “He only wants to hurt you.”

“You’re sure about this?” Peter asks and Mohinder can hear the expectation in his tone for an agreeing response. But there is also the faintest trace of uncertainty in his inflection that Mohinder is holding back.

Leaning back in his chair Mohinder raises his cup to his lips. Eyeing Peter he says, “Yes,” and gulps down the drink, burning his tongue in the process.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

It does not matter that it is the middle of the day. Mohinder’s perturbed mind turns the empty (accept for the handful of randomly placed cars) parking garage into a musty smelling concrete haunted house that echoes his footsteps, reminding him he is all alone. He speeds up the pace to The Company issued car and fingers the keys in his right pocket. He darts his eyes around skimming over cars and lingering a second longer on indistinguishable dark corners. With his car twenty feet away, however, he redirects his attention on getting there and clicks the button on his keys to unlock the driver’s door.

The last few steps Mohinder takes amount to a light jog and then he is home free with the door handle in his left hand—

A footstep, not his own, startles him into dropping the keys—

“You seem nervous.”

Mohinder looks to his right at Sylar approaching him, already only ten feet away, with his right hand stretched out in front, palm up. Only then does Mohinder realize that there has been no clattering of the keys against the concrete ground. Mohinder looks down and watches them hang in mid air near his knees before rising up and fitting back into his right hand.

“I don’t appreciate being cornered,” Mohinder says staring at the keys now settled in his hand. He blanks his face, trying to remove any give away sign of his panic and fright, and looks at Sylar.

Sylar pauses, then says, “Always so angry, rarely a kind word. Are you like that with everyone or am I a special case?”

He moves closer resting his arm on the top of the car and tilts his head forward. Mohinder turns to face him directly careful not to back up and give Sylar any indication of submissiveness. Mohinder folds his arms across his chest, still clutching the keys tightly, and angles his head back so that he can look down his nose at Sylar, as if to say, ‘two can play at this game.’

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mohinder says. “You’re no more special than the other hundreds and growing segment of the world population with genetic enhancement. The only thing that makes you different is your delusional belief that you’re the greatest one of all.”

Sylar tenses his jaw and shifts closer while sliding his arm across the top of the car and stops a foot from Mohinder who challenges himself to not look away.

“What a carefully constructed little speech,” Sylar says and smirks. “One you’ve given me many times before, though the words are bit different. Tell me, is it something you work on in your spare time for occasions such as this?”

“Yes, I devote my every waking thought to you,” Mohinder says in a flat voice and turns to the car jamming the key in the lock. “I don’t have time for this.”

He turns the key, forgetting the door is already unlocked, but before he can flip up the door handle the lock clicks back down into place. Mohinder sighs and stares at his unclear reflection in the glass. His creased brow and narrowed eyes work with pursed lips to recreate his inner pensiveness. There is something else, however, barely tangible, that peeks briefly through his softening features. He pushes it aside as soon as it appears.

“Is it really so repulsive for you to work with me?” Sylar says and Mohinder glances up at him and sees the returned inquisitive look.

_Do not hesitate_, Mohinder thinks and he locks their gaze. “Absolutely,” he says and the firm distaste in his tone elicits a subtle flinch from Sylar who, for the first time, looks away to the other side of the car.

Mohinder trains his attention on Sylar who is uncharacteristically quiet. The sudden silence between them provides the façade of a stoppage in time, one that allows for observation. Mohinder is drawn in by the strength Sylar still conveys even when he seems distracted by lost thoughts. He holds his body tall with his posture very steady and precise. Even his arm on the car is a very specific action of suggested relaxation, like he has all the control in the world. In profile his focused attention is as striking as it is eye-to-eye. There is no shifting gaze to the side to acknowledge Mohinder; rather it is the far wall Sylar takes in.

The blankness Mohinder makes out from the side does not indicate an impersonal disconnect. Mohinder knows them both too well for that. Sylar’s stone cold face is the sheet pulled over a barrage of intellectual ruminations. That Sylar does this with him; taking the time to regroup, considering him worthy of such an effort (even if it is only to hurt him later on) is an ashamedly remarkable boost to his confidence.

Sylar settles piercing eyes on Mohinder who both recoils from and is hypnotized by the gaze. “You’ll need to find another time to deal with these pesky personal issues you have with me.”

Mohinder raises an eyebrow as Sylar continues with a smile, “I just have that way of touching a nerve. But us working together is going to happen whether you like it or not—,”

“Over my dead body.”

“I don’t think it needs to go that far,” Sylar says and reaches forward with both hands to straighten Mohinder’s collar. “A bit drastic really and you know as well as I do that there is greater trouble out there that needs to be dealt with promptly.”

Mohinder begins breathing rapidly, his worry about the larger fight on the horizon melting into his panic at Sylar so close to him, watching his reaction so intently. Mohinder tries to shrug his hands off but Sylar only tightens his grip and leans forward.

With a low voice Sylar says, “Save your passionate anger for the fight where it will do you more good. We can always pick up where we leave off afterwards.”

The confusion that rushes through Mohinder is for the inexplicable pull he feels towards Sylar and his declarative words. He has already been wavering on working with Sylar but what frightens him is that it is for more than just doing it and getting it over with, making everyone happy in return.

On the occasion when Mohinder allows himself to analyze uncensored thoughts he is shocked yet unsurprised to find he does not hate the idea of working with Sylar. In fact he is reminded of conversations, of shared jokes and academia-style discussions, of understood similarities in not so different differences, in the wonder of showcased abilities and appreciative awe, in the feeling of connection in all possible ways, that once had been so real; at least to him.

Unsure of what he wants to say Mohinder opens his mouth then closes it. A twisted smile turns up at the corner of Sylar’s mouth and Mohinder is snapped out his reverie. Not caring if he rips his shirt Mohinder steps back with a strong jerky movement and Sylar’s grip is thwarted. “I have to go,” he says.

Sylar stands tall and with both arms bent at his side, palms up, he motions upwards and casually says, “Of course.” He folds in the fingers on his right hand except for the index finger that he flicks upwards.

Mohinder hears the car unlock and grabs for the handle. When he looks up Sylar is already gone.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

“And you’re sure she’s okay?” Mohinder says into the phone he has pressed tightly to his ear. He sits on the edge of his bed with his arms propped up on his legs. He rests his right hand across his forehead, thoughtfully, listening for his mother’s distant voice.

“Molly’s fine,” Anjali laughs. “She and your cousin Meena—Roshni’s daughter—are already best friends.”

Mohinder sighs in relief. “Good, that’s…that’s good to hear. Her life has not been so ideal…”

“Don’t you worry about her,” Anjali says. “She’s quite resilient.”

Mohinder says nothing, unsure about what Molly has told his mother about her life. His pause encourages Anjali to explain.

“She told me about her parents and Matt. She misses all of you but she understands why it was not safe for her to stay. Still—I think she is bit homesick.”

“Mmmm,” Mohinder says knowing they are on the verge of broaching a subject he would prefer to postpone. Yet if anyone could help set his mind at ease with words of advice it would be his mother. He had always been close to her, a relationship not duplicated with his father. Where Chandra was a distant figure Mohinder always felt he was running after, Anjali was at his side or encouraging him in his endeavors.

“Mohinder?”

“Hmmm, yes, sorry,” he says unable to stop stumbling over his words.

“What’s wrong my son?” she asks in that tone, that perfect one that makes him to tell her everything and unburden all his hopes and worries. It is the tone that makes him want to drop everything and fly to India to he can hug her while she rubs his back and soothingly promises that everything will be okay. Mohinder closes his eyes.

“I…” he says and rethinks what exactly it is he wants to say. “Let’s say that to do something good you have to work with someone who has caused a lot of hurt. Would you do it?”

“Was the person hurtful on purpose?” she says, her voice laced with curiosity.

“Yes.”

“But by working with him you could do good?”

“Potentially. Yes.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I’m not sure,” Mohinder says and lies back on the bed still hanging his legs over the side. He throws his right arm above his head. “I would think that we’d be fine at first but when it is all said and done he could just as easily revert to how he usually is.”

“Or he could change—,”

“Doubtful.”

“Is it?” she says, and now he can hear the persistence in her voice as she begins to truly engage the significance of what he has posed. “Can he be absolutely cruel if he is willing to do some good?”

“But his reasons are selfish,” Mohinder says trying to explain the confusion of the situation without giving away any personal information. “He’s only looking out for himself, for what he wants.”

“And he wants to work with you?”

The question is so deceptively simple that it renders Mohinder tongue-tied in loss for a response. He stares up at the ceiling and suddenly cannot comprehend how he is beneath the same sky as his mother and yet worlds apart.

“He’s done such bad things,” he says as memories as clear now as before pound his heart. “Hurt so many with such disregard and if I agree to work with him it’s as if I’m forgiving all of it and can’t do that.”

“Then don’t,” Anjali says. “No one says you must forgive and forget, but maybe you need to learn to prioritize.”

“Meaning?” Mohinder says and furrows his brow.

“Is it more important to do good or remain stubborn?”

Mohinder sits up swiftly and says, “You make me sound childish.”

Anjali sighs at his pointed annoyance. “That is not my intention. You’re angry and confused and as much as I love how strongly you’ve always felt things maybe right now your emotions are the problem. You’re at a crossroads and it’s a difficult one. Do not be quick to cut off your nose to spite your face.”

Mohinder relaxes his shoulders and droops them low in understanding. The cause is bigger at the moment than his personal issues with Sylar. If he refuses this he will only end up weakening the side he should be trying to help—and it would all be out of a stubborn refusal to delay his personal problems to a later time. Despite grasping this Mohinder still finds the decision to be a struggle.

“I only wish it were so simple,” he says.

He hears silence and pictures his mother lost in one of her deep thoughts, her dark hair and eyes offset by a bright yellow sari much more an extension of her generally positive disposition.

“He hurt you?” she finally says.

Mohinder hesitates then says, “Yes. A few times and I…I had trusted him once.”

“Maybe he is trying to make amends with you?” she says.

Mohinder scoffs and switches the phone to his other ear. “He’s not the type to regret what he’s done. Any of it.”

“It cannot be so black and white,” she says. Her calm balances out the urging edge to her words. Mohinder smiles as he recalls late afternoon talks with her when he could not figure out what to do about his father, and at one time Mira. Anjali’s questions and observations would unexpectedly guide him along the path he could not see needed to be taken. Never harsh, she still managed to coax him to see more than what he would normally allow of himself.

“If it were so easy,” she continues, “you would not be so conflicted.”

Mohinder closes his eyes and feels the crack in once steadfast armor growing bigger. But instead of being disappointed he feels an odd sense of relief as if his mother has seen what he already knew.

“Whatever you decide will be right,” she says. “Somewhere in between what your heart says and what your mind demands, is where your answer resides. Trust yourself.”

Mohinder takes a deep breath and says, “I will,” with a tiny smile along his lips.

“It will all be fine,” she says. “Besides, I like having a young girl around the house again.”

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Mohinder taps away mindlessly on the laptop that he has propped up on his legs while he rests his back against the headboard. He should be focused on inputting information from the latest interrogation but he is distracted by Sylar sitting on the side of the other bed in the hotel room, facing his direction, sending concentrated hot and cold bursts of power that shine purple and crimson between his stretched out palms. The colour display keeps calling Mohinder’s attention over and the whooshing sound of each burst might as well be a deafening cacophony of sound that swells over everything else.

As wondrous as it is Mohinder glares and says, “Must you do that?” while he hovers his fingers above the keyboard.

Sylar looks up at him and shoots a burst of fire towards Mohinder, pulling it back when it crosses the halfway point between them. Mohinder flinches against his will and the smile on Sylar’s face tells him it did not go unnoticed.

“I like to make sure I’m in top form,” Sylar says turning his right palm upwards. He brings his left hand perpendicular to it and begins waving his fingers, slowly than more quickly, while he moves his left hand over top the right one. Mohinder watches mesmerized as a mini twister forms in the cup of Sylar’s hand. It spins faster in response to how quickly Sylar’s fingers demand it to.

Mohinder holds his breath and watches Sylar’s intense concentration on the created weather system weapon. Slowly Sylar drops both his hands but the mini twister remains mid air, held in his gaze. As he drifts his eyes towards Mohinder the twister follows. The unexpected feel of a light but increasingly stronger rush of air against his face brings Mohinder’s attention to Sylar’s eyes.

“Sylar,” he says sternly to force him to stop.

“Sylar,” he says again and snaps shut the screen of the laptop.

Sylar sighs an annoyed groan and lifts his left hand quickly making a fist. The twister disappears.

“Very mature,” Mohinder says.

Sylar grins. “As if you wouldn’t float upside down if you had the chance.”

Mohinder, ‘hmmphs,’ his discomfort at the observation and looks down at the closed laptop, skirting his finger tips along the surface. Working with Sylar has induced a mess of feelings, the most significant of which is how comfortable he feels with him. Their normal sarcasm, challenge of intellects and individual assertions remains intact but this go around has brought to light that which had been so easily ignored or unknown before: they are familiar to one another.

They act and react in accordance to coordinates that are theirs alone and it makes sense as only they can. But Mohinder would be loath to admit any of this out loud and he finds a small relief in Sylar’s inability to read his mind.

“You can curb the attitude for the night,” Sylar says and Mohinder eyes him questioningly. “There’s no way you and Ms. Electric Slide would have been able to take down Goran tonight. And with Petrelli M.I.A., I should think you’d be a little more grateful for what I bring to the table.”

“How can I not be appreciative? You use them all the time to show off your prowess, reminding everyone how different—above us all—you are,” Mohinder rolls his eyes.

Sylar silently holds his gaze and then rumbles, “I could show you how I do it.”

The statement is a tease and a test. Mohinder knows the dare in the offer, he knows that Sylar is guessing he will say no yet is still suggesting the possibility of something Mohinder has imagined in more than one fleeting thought.

Instead he says, “No thank you. I don’t particularly like your way of doing things. Besides I like my place amongst mortals.”

Whether Sylar believes the half truth or not Mohinder cannot say. The line of discussion is making him nervous for what might one day slip past his lips in some awful truth. To delay that looming inevitable Mohinder stares down at his laptop again.

“I don’t believe that for one second,” Sylar says.

“I have to work,” Mohinder says abruptly but only gets his fingers a millimeter under the screen when the laptop flies off his lap and into Sylar’s outstretched hand. He does not know how it has always been like this with Sylar, how he has always felt observed and analyzed in Sylar’s penetrating gaze of deep brown. It is unnerving how it feels like Sylar is truly _seeing_ him.

Sylar puts the laptop behind him on the bed, never breaking their look, and Mohinder says, “Or we could talk since that always works so well.”

Sylar says nothing to prod the conversation along and Mohinder’s nervousness turns into irritation at yet another mind game. He shifts over on his bed and stretches his arms out in front, muffling a yawn. “Or we could just sit in silence.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Mohinder freezes mid stretch, glancing at Sylar then drops his arms to his lap and casually says, “About?”

Sylar tilts his head and the angle of his eyes peering upward is discerning as it tells Mohinder that he is going to have to step it up to play this game. “You were so adamant about not giving in even though…even I was a bit surprised when the Red Queen—,”

_Angela,_ Mohinder thinks.

“—delivered the news. What was it? Couldn’t lie to yourself anymore?”

“Lie?”

“That I absolutely do not fascinate you,” says Sylar standing up and taking full advantage of looking down on Mohinder. “Quite the opposite isn’t it? You can’t imagine me going on and becoming stronger without you being able to observe…to taste it through me.”

“Wow. How long have you been trying to convince yourself of that?” Mohinder says. “Bennet was right, you do crave my opinion, my _approval_.”

Mohinder twitches a half smile at Sylar’s smirk briefly falling in surprise before the condescending mask is fit back into place.

“Always looking to others to assert your self-worth,” Mohinder says thoroughly enjoying flipping an old conversation on its head. “Or is this just for me because I’m special?”

The balance of power in Mohinder’s favour only lasts until Sylar’s telltale knowing grin returns and resets the playing field at level. “I don’t waste my conversation on just anyone,” he says.

Besides the unexpectedness of the statement the double-edged answer furthers Sylar’s confident control but it also puts Mohinder back on familiar ground—responding to an arrogant sparring partner of familiar means.

“And I decided to keep my enemy closer,” Mohinder says and shuffles down lower on the left side of the bed so that he can rest his head on the pillow. Throwing his left arm beneath his head he rests the right one on the bed and thinks about trying to get in a brief nap before dinner.

He stares up at the ceiling until he hears Sylar mutter something unintelligible. He looks over and sees Sylar turn around and sit down on the right edge of the bed with his back to him. They sit in near silence for a minute with only their breathing to fill the air. Then Sylar turns on the bed and swings his legs up to rest near Mohinder’s head.

“Shoes,” Mohinder says firmly catching his eye.

Sylar huffs at his own forgetful manners and moves back into a seated position to kick off his shoes. Then he is settling on the bed with his socked feet on the pillow next to Mohinder’s head. Sensing that Sylar is close to the edge Mohinder scoots over an inch or two, allowing him to get more comfortable. His right hand brushes along Mohinder’s. Reactively Mohinder moves his hand to a resting position on his chest, keeping their contact to the heat that emanates across the small space between their bodies.

“Close enough for you?” Sylar says with a teasing laugh.

Mohinder chooses not to respond, instead he stares at his hand as it rises and falls on top of his stomach. In the haze of the background he sees Sylar lift his head. Mohinder refocuses his gaze and meets Sylar’s eyes. Sylar holds his upper body up on his elbows and looks around the room.

“At least we’ve moved up from seedy motels,” Sylar says.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of repulsive stuff left over from previous guests,” Mohinder says and Sylar makes a face of disgust at him.

“Nice to see you haven’t lost your optimism,” Sylar says with a well-worn cloak of sarcasm draped across his words.

“You beat it out of me,” Mohinder says getting the reaction he had hoped for in Sylar’s narrowed, darkening eyes and slightly parted mouth as he holds back words that are too unsure to be said out loud.

Sylar lies back down and shifts his legs. Mohinder smiles at the calculated turn of the screw. He knows that Sylar does not always appreciate reminders of their last day, when the truth crashed through harsh lies and they pushed each other over the edge. There are weakness such remembrances draw attention to. Mohinder has thought about the fact that Sylar did not kill him when had the chance, when he would have felt the most justified to. He had never asked Sylar about it specifically and bringing it up works twofold: he gets a jab in at Sylar while reminding him about a dark period they both remember far too well.

The consequence for himself however is that the same trip down memory lane is an exercise in self-doubt and humiliation. Mohinder had always prided himself on trying to be open minded only to have it backfire spectacularly, nearly costing him his life. In the process he had turned into a calling card of manipulations for Sylar, some lighthouse guidepost.

That day was the beginning of everything that has followed. In each return something new was uncovered. He hears it in Sylar’s tone and unwavering gaze. He feels it in his own uncertainty around Sylar every time he thinks about him, which he hides in a stubborn streak and counter attacks; and now here they are, side-by-side, another unexpected fork in the road.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Mohinder breaks the quiet forcefully, although even he is not so sure of which regret he is speaking. He closes his eyes and breathes deeper while drifting off but Sylar restlessly shifting next to him, presumably uncomfortably, works against much desired rest.

Half turning to the right Mohinder pulls the pillow out from under Sylar’s feet (drawing out a “hey,” from the end of the bed) and tosses it towards Sylar who catches it and place it beneath his head. The trace of an all too pleased smirk greets Mohinder’s gesture and after a held gaze they both rests their heads back.

“Half an hour,” Sylar says with the hint of a question as his body finally stills.

“…Yeah…” Mohinder says and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Heroes Slash Awards  
> **Nominated for Best Bennet Characterization** (WINNER)


End file.
